Swimmers’ revolt over doping gathers pace
Medal ceremony protests have shown up the sport’s ruling body and could yet haunt next year’s Olympics
It was the week when the fight for clean sport turned serious. Duncan Scott, the British swimmer beaten into bronze by China’s Sun Yang in the 200metres freestyle at the World Championships in South Korea, took one look at the gold medallist, a man already banned for three months for a positive drug test, and decided he wanted no part of it. The 22-year-old, following the lead of Australia’s Mack Horton, stood aside from the podium revelries, not only stoking Sun’s ire but laying the ground for an insurrection that could yet reach the heart of next summer’s Tokyo Olympics.
The message was unmistakable: athletes have heard enough weasel words from their governing bodies about doping. They have seen Fina, the risible organisation in charge of swimming, respond absurdly leniently to Sun’s murky past, which includes serving a secretive suspension for what he claims was a necessary heart medication, and allowing one of his blood vials due for testing to be smashed up with a hammer. Likewise, they have seen Russia preside over a vast statesponsored doping racket, only for the International Olympic Committee to usher the country back into the fold the moment critics’ backs were turned. Against that backdrop of betrayal, many feel that there is no option but to prosecute the fight themselves.
Fina’s threat of sanctions against Horton and Scott for “bringing the sport into disrepute” says far more about the ruling body than it does about the two swimmers. What type of authority uses stronger language to condemn a dignified protest than it does about the alleged doping that has inspired such a gesture in the first place?
If you thought Fifa was bad, you should check out its chlorinated cousin. In 2014, it conferred an award called the Fina Order, reserved for “individuals of high dignity, who have achieved remarkable merit in the world of aquatics”, upon Vladimir Putin. Then, after the Mclaren Report exposed the extent of Russian malfeasance in the world of doping, Fina stood by it. Its president, Uruguay’s Julio Maglione, is 83, having had the gall to stand for a third term at 81.
Fina operates according to the same system that kept Sepp Blatter in power so long. Each country’s vote has equal power: a template for international cooperation in theory, but not when the United States has to
make do with the same influence as that known swimming powerhouse, American Samoa. All a leader has to do is to shore up voting blocs in Africa, the South Pacific and the Middle East, regardless of their lack of athletic representation, and he can effectively cling to the perks of office in perpetuity.
This is the reality that swimmers, in increasing numbers, are seeking to dismantle. In London last December, Konstantin Grigorishin, a Ukrainian businessman, announced the creation of the International Swimming League as a refuge for those disenchanted with the sport under Fina. “Why, if swimming is such a popular sport, is there no money in it?” he asked, calling for swimmers to accept nothing less than 50 per cent of competition revenues. While the ISL has yet to take off, in the face of fierce Fina resistance, the actions of Horton and Scott show that athletes have not given up on the hope of change.
The root of the protesters’ disillusion is the impression of an easy ride in swimming, as in so many sports, for those with past doping violations. Now that Sun is back winning global gold medals for fun, it is perhaps unsurprising that his peers do not relish his return. “I don’t think anyone at Fina is going to stand up for the athletes,” reflected American Lilly King, the Olympic 100metres breaststroke champion. “So, the athletes have to stand up for themselves.” It is a searing indictment of Fina’s ineptitude on the doping front, but alas an all too common story at the highest level of sport.
Fina survives only with its official recognition from the IOC, whose move to reinstate Russia after the Pyeongcha ng Winter Olympics – even though two of its athletes failed tests at those Games – looks more craven by the day. This month, it was found that two Russian boxers handed doping suspensions were still competing while banned.
These sports bodies that turn the other cheek often seem blind to the very essence of sport itself. Why should young athletes such as Horton and Scott cheer the rehabilitation of a convicted doper, knowing that their best efforts have been undermined by somebody who took a pharmacological shortcut? The era of tacit acceptance is over, and the time for concerted rebellion has begun. Clean athletes are sick of being helpless bystanders while saboteurs are brought back on the quiet. The 2020 Tokyo Games could yet herald the most dramatic manifestation of that shift.
While the silent anger of two swimmers might look like a small sideshow, it is likely soon to become something far larger.
‘I do not think Fina is going to stand up for the athletes. So, the athletes have to stand up for themselves’